


The Architecture of Time

by Irving-Braxiatel (Elycia7)



Category: Gallifrey (Big Finish Audio)
Genre: Angst, Canon Divergence If You Squint, Character Death, F/M, Other, Time War
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-11
Updated: 2018-05-11
Packaged: 2019-05-05 10:54:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,550
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14616906
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Elycia7/pseuds/Irving-Braxiatel
Summary: Rarely did Braxiatel actually tamper with fixed points. He worked around them, yes, changed the floorplan so they would be located somewhere that suited his vision better. Never had he been tempted to attempt to manipulate the sketches so one would not happen. Never, until the day his future self revealed that Romana had to die.





	The Architecture of Time

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you to thejabberwoki for betaing. You're a star< 3

There is a way of things, which cannot be ignored. Time is elastic, it can be stretched and tugged at and pulled, but everything has its breaking point, and if one does not remember to play gentle the web of time is easily torn.  A well placed word here or there shapes a timeline, another cancels it out entirely. But no matter what certain things will always happen;  _ must  _ always happen.

Fixed points are what these events are normally called. It is not entirely accurate, but that is their name nonetheless. They are not fixed, but rather, constant. ‘Fixed’ might describe them well, if one does not think in the fourth dimension, and realise that ‘fixed’ is not a good term for it at all.  Constant is also wrong, but better. There is nothing fixed about these events. But they are certain. They must happen or must have happened. The timing, well, that depends on how the web of time is shaped around it.

Perhaps the simplest way to explain it is that time is like a building. To the individual worker, placing stones and laying tiles, the entire construction will never be apparent at once. They may journey from room to room, but can never be in more than place at the same time. They can retrace their steps, but that will not bring them back to the moment they first laid those bricks. Most of the universe’s inhabitants experience time like this.

And then there is the architect. The architect who knows what the finished building ought to look like, who manage, and nudge, to make sure it turns out as they envision it. Their influence ever present, their word the law of land, so to say. Their imagination has but one limit. All buildings must have bearing walls. Without them the building will fall apart like a house of cards in a mild breeze.

Braxiatel would not go so far as to call himself an architect. Not today, of all days. Much too theatrical. He is simply someone who knows what must be done, and who makes sure that it is done in the proper way.

The web of time has many bearing walls. Rassilon made sure his Time Lords would be a constant in the universe, and in accordance to Newton’s third law, the Daleks too became one. These two are two well known bearing walls. But there are others, some you may not even notice. The Great oxidation event on Sol 3, the invention of the digestive biscuit, the impeachment of the Child Emperor of En’klaxx, a bet placed between two fishermen on the fifth moon of Rexar II about the outcome of a game of cricket, the fall of the Anyriallix pub on the crossing between the 7th and 14th streets on the planet Euqi, the death of Romanadvoratrelundar.

Rarely did Braxiatel actually tamper with these events. He worked around them, yes, changed the floorplan so they would be located somewhere that suited his vision better. Never had he been tempted to attempt to manipulate the sketches so one would not happen. Never, until the day his future self detailed how Romana had to die.

It had to be on Gallifrey, and she had to be in her second body. A set of rules that were so wonderfully vague Braxiatel could think up a thousand ways that it would never happen.

An assassination shortly after she had been elected as President, averted by making sure she would be at a conference on Archetryx. A death onboard a  class 7C supra-orbital time  station, easily avoided by making sure Coordinator Vansell would be there to take her place. An untimely demise on Gryben, stopped by making sure Leela of the Sevateem would be with her. A death only of the mind, at the hands of Pandora, which he prevented at great personal cost.

Off Gallifrey he persisted. The universe was bent on killing Romana, and he was bent on not letting it. He brought in special constructors, made it so the other walls, the ones he built, might bear the weight of the ceiling instead of her death having to keep the web of time from unravelling. But despite his best attempts, the roof still threatened to cave above the house he was constructing.

Instead he decided, simply, to take her out of the equation. To have it so the roof she would have to hold up was never build in the first place. He removed her, and himself, along with Leela and Narvin, from the universe. They would find somewhere else to go, somewhere that her death would be easily preventable.

He never got to do that, of course. To follow the metaphor, he was pulled off the project. To save her he had to throw himself and a version of his younger brother into the space between universes.

The fact that he survived at all was pure luck. He was grateful, naturally, to the whims of fate. But in terms of preserving Romana this presented an issue. On Legion, with only his knowledge of how the timelines may have been, there was very little he could do to oversee the construction work.

When he finally found his way home it was too late. In one final desperate ploy to defy the universe, he convinced her he was sent by her own future self, to save Gallifrey. Perhaps, he deluded himself, if she were not the president she would not be the target of the universe. If he put someone else in her place, they might take the fall instead.

He knew he had failed. Now, no matter what he did, the first bricks had already been laid. Her death was more inevitable than ever, and all he could do was to try to make the ride as smooth as possible.

But even Irving Braxiatel had to give up eventually. Removing Ace removed a threat, but the loss of Leela created a dozen times as many. He too had the potential to bring about Romana’s demise, he knew. He did not fool himself into thinking this was about Romana, at this point. It was about him, selfishly not being willing to let her go, wanting to spite the universe, to prove that  _ he  _ was boss of time, and not vice versa.

He wondered, idly, as he set his final plan into motion, if he would have taken the deal if the universe had offered him her life in exchange for his own.

He left her a message, a final goodbye. Although he was not there to hear her remark that his apology being out of character, he did not need to. He knew that to her this would be his final betrayal. To him… well he had to steel his hearts now. He had other projects, though, he had to admit sadly, none as lovely as Romana’s continued existence.

He felt it when she died. The universe laughed at him, the threats of the web of time hitting him as they snapped back in place.

No, today he would not call himself the architect. He had simply seen the blueprint, and tried to impose his own designs. But now the time to own up had come, and this was his punishment.

His office was dark, as he sat in his chair. He poured himself another cognac, and drained it. Eyes closed, wondering how she had died in the end.

He could not allow himself to dwell. Not for long, anyway. It had happened much sooner than he had expected. He was alone when he felt it, thankfully. There were days when he may even have hidden his surprise from himself, but on this occasion he had allowed himself a few minutes to recover from the shock.

With each passing second breathing became easier, his hearts stopped beating so fast. After a minute or so his hands had stopped shaking.

For a while he had kept Romana’s portrait on his wall. To all others it took the appearance of a still life of one of the statues in the garden. Only those who expected to see Romana would see her. Now he wished he had not taken it down.

He smiled, not because he wanted to, but because there was little else he had left to do. Mania took over, smiling turning to chuckling, turning to laughter. When he was out of breath and a laughs turned into a sound that from anyone else would have been described as a sob, he stopped himself.

He had to keep the pain inside. It was his, not to be shared with others.

Drying his eyes, he stood. Failure was not unfamiliar. He would recover, in time. There was reason to wonder if his course of actions had been the best option. He could so easily have been selfish - made someone else stop Pandora, or have warned himself about the Doctor being Lord Burner. Tried to live in the moment for once, rather than look to the future.

Of course, he wouldn’t be Irving Braxiatel if he had done that.

And besides, he flattered himself, he had done what Romana would have wanted. Better she get to live and decide her own fate, than he seal it for her.


End file.
